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Arthur Wellesley Hughes (1870–1945/1950) was a Canadian musician, band arranger, instrumentalist, and composer. Born in Kingston, eastern Ontario, ca. 1870, he separated from his family at a young age, spending many years in the United States as an itinerant circus musician. Little is known about Hughes’ musical background except that he played the piano and a brass instrument and was a teacher of L.F. Addison. He was a performer on piano, calliope, and alto horn. His circus associations on record include Mighty Haag Circus; Downie & Wheeler Circus (1912); Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus (1922); Sells-Floto Circus (1923); and Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows (1924-26) where he operated the steam calliope. He was with Robbins Bros. Circus (1928–29) whence his Robbins Bros. Triumphal March arose; Miller Bros. 101 Ranch Wild West Show; and Walter L. Main Circus (1930–31).

At the turn of the century Hughes began editing and arranging for a succession of music publishers. He worked as composer and arranger for the Waterloo Music Company of Waterloo, Ontario, from 1932-1935. At other times, Hughes worked as arranger in various publishing houses, such as Whaley-Royce in Toronto, and Cundy-Bettoney in Boston. Others included Anglo-Canadian, W.H. Billing, A.H. Goetting, W.H. Hodgins, W.F. Shaw, H.H. Sparks, and Gordon V. Thompson. According to his own account, Hughes wrote band music in the U.S.A. for much of his life, under various pen names, including Arthur Wellesley and H. W. Arthur.

Hughes was one of Canada’s most prolific writers of marches and dance music, producing ca. 1890-1930 some 50 published works and numerous arrangements. Typical are United Empire March, In Old Quebec, The Rosedale Three-Step, Hail Edward VII, and March of the Allies. One of his best-known works, the St. Julien March was published by Cundy-Bettoney in 1918. Recordings of his compositions for band were issued on the Columbia, Pathé, Victor, and other labels. In his 70s, Hughes returned to Kansas, which he considered his home. It is reported that he died in an indigent ward in a New York City hospital in ca. 1945-1950.

The following work by Arthur Wellesley Hughes is contained in my collection:

James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator of film scores, who was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements, and for his frequent use of motifs associated with Celtic music. Horner was born on August 14, 1953, in Los Angeles, California, to Jewish immigrants. His father, Harry Horner, was born in Holíč, then a part of Austria-Hungary. He immigrated to the United States in 1935 and worked as a set designer and art director. His mother, Joan Ruth (née Frankel), was born into a prominent Canadian family. His brother Christopher is a writer and documentary filmmaker. James started playing piano at the age of five. He spent his early years in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music. He returned to America, where he attended Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, and later received his bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Southern California. After earning a master’s degree, he started work on his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he studied with Paul Chihara, among others. After several scoring assignments with the American Film Institute in the 1970s, he finished teaching a course in music theory at UCLA, then turned to film scoring. Horner was also an avid pilot, and owned several small airplanes.

Horner’s first credit as a feature-film composer was for B-movie director and producer Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars. As his work gained notice in Hollywood, Horner was invited to take on larger projects. One of his first major scores was for 1979’s The Lady in Red. Horner’s big break came in 1982 when he was asked to score Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It established him as an A-list Hollywood composer. Horner continued writing high-profile film scores in the 1980s, including 48 Hrs. (1982), Krull (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Commando (1985), Cocoon (1985), Aliens (1986), *batteries not included (1987), Willow (1988), Glory and Field of Dreams (both 1989). Cocoon was the first of his many collaborations with director Ron Howard. In 1987, Horner’s original score for Aliens brought him his first Academy Award nomination. “Somewhere Out There,” which he co-composed and co-wrote with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for An American Tail, was also nominated that year for Best Original Song.

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, Horner wrote orchestral scores for family films (particularly those produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment), with credits for An American Tail (1986); The Land Before Time (1988); The Rocketeer and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991); Once Upon a Forest and We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993); The Pagemaster (1994); Casper, Jumanji, and Balto (1995); Mighty Joe Young (1998); and How the Grinch stole Christmas (2000). Horner scored six films in 1995, including his commercially successful and critically acclaimed works for Braveheart and Apollo 13, both of which received Academy Award nominations. Horner’s biggest critical and financial success came in 1997 with his score for James Cameron’s Titanic. At the 70th Academy Awards, Horner received the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, and shared the Oscar for Best Original Song with co-writer Will Jennings for “My Heart Will Go On.” The film’s score and song also won three Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

After Titanic, Horner continued to compose for major productions, including The Perfect Storm, A Beautiful Mind, Enemy at the Gates, The Mask of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro, House of Sand and Fog, and Bicentennial Man. He also worked on smaller projects such as Iris, Radio, and Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius. He received his eighth and ninth Academy Award nominations for A Beautiful Mind (2001) and House of Sand and Fog (2003), but lost on both occasions to composer Howard Shore. Horner composed the 2006–2011 theme for the CBS Evening News, which was introduced during the debut of anchor Katie Couric on September 5, 2006. He wrote various treatments of the theme. Horner collaborated again with James Cameron on his 2009 film Avatar, which became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Cameron’s own Titanic. Horner worked exclusively on Avatar for over two years. Avatar brought Horner his tenth Academy Award nomination, as well as nominations for the Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award and Grammy Award, all of which he lost to Michael Giacchino for Up.

After Avatar, Horner wrote the score for the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, replacing Atli Örvarsson. In 2011, he scored Cristiada (also known as For Greater Glory), which was released a year later; and Black Gold. In 2012 he scored The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield. In early 2015, after a three-year hiatus, Horner wrote the music for the adventure film Wolf Totem, his fourth collaboration with director Jean-Jacques Annaud. At the time of his death, Horner had scored two films yet to be released. They were Southpaw, a boxing drama directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams; and The 33, for director Patricia Riggen. Horner’s scores are also heard in trailers for other films. The climax of Bishop’s Countdown, from his score for Aliens, ranks as the 5th most commonly used soundtrack cue in trailers. In addition, Horner wrote the theme music for the Horsemen P-51 Aerobatic Team, and appears in “The Horsemen Cometh,” a documentary about the team and the P-51 Mustang fighter plane. The theme is heard at the team’s airshow performances.

In October, 2013, Horner received the Max Steiner Award at the Hollywood in Vienna Gala, an award given for extraordinary achievement in the field of film music. In 2014, Horner wrote Pas de Deux, a double concerto for violin and cello. Horner also composed Collage, a concerto for four horns. On June 22, 2015, news services reported that Horner, age 61, was presumed to have died when his Short Tucano turboprop aircraft crashed into the Los Padres National Forest near Ventucopa, California. On June 25, the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed Horner’s death and ruled the crash an accident. In July 2015, a month after his death, it was discovered Horner had also written the score for the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven, planning it as a surprise.

Homeschool Home Economics
by Cindy Puhek, Homeschool Life from Crosswalk.com (Tuesday, November 8, 2011)

Why I picked the octopus pillow for my seventh-grade home economics project, I will never know. I guess I thought it was cute, and I chose it not realizing the curves of the legs and body would make it a more difficult sewing project than some of the other options.

I found the sewing very difficult, and to add insult to injury, I, the straight-A student, received a B on my rather angular octopus. This first experience on a sewing machine so traumatized me that I decided it would be my last project on a sewing machine, and I hardly touched a sewing machine for most of my early adulthood.

Twenty-four years after my junior high sewing experience, I was sitting at camp with a group of homeschooled families. Downstairs, one family was giving a demonstration on how to make a tiered skirt without a pattern. Later, we heard from a young teenaged girl who had her own business selling custom totes and aprons she made herself. When this girl was 9, she sewed all the clothing worn by the bridal party in her sister’s wedding. At this time, I did not even own a sewing machine. But these lovely families planted a vision in my heart to make my home a place of productivity, not just for myself, but so I could pass these skills on to my daughters.

Cindy Puhek resides in Colorado Springs where she spends her time working as a help meet to her beloved husband and training her 5 children to be warriors for Jesus. Cindy earned a masters degree in chemistry and had a career teaching science classes before realizing God’s highest call on her life is to invest her gifts and talents to make her home a place of ministry and industry and refuge. You can visit Cindy’s blog at http://www.hseblogs.com/cindy. This article was originally published in the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of HomeSchoolEnrichment Magazine. To learn more, and to request a FREE sample copy, visit http://www.HomeSchoolEnrichment.com

Al Hoffman (September 25, 1902 – July 21, 1960) was an American song composer, active as a hit songwriter in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, usually co-writing with others and responsible for number one hits through each decade, many of which are still sung and recorded today. Hoffman was born in Minsk, then part of Russia, now Belarus, to a Jewish family. His parents moved to Seattle, Washington, in the United States when he was six. After graduating from high school in Seattle, he started his own band, playing the drums, moved to New York City in 1928 to pursue a music career, and got a job drumming in a nightclub. Though he continued playing the drums in night club bands and selling bagels door-to-door on Broadway, he began writing songs, collaborating with other songwriters such as Leon Carr, Leo Corday, Mann Curtis, Milton Drake, Walter Kent, Dick Manning, and Bob Merrill.

Hoffman’s first hit came quickly, with “I Don’t Mind Walkin’ in the Rain” (1930). He followed this up with a number of hits over the next few years, including “Heartaches” (1931), “Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear” (1932), and “I Saw Stars” (1934). In 1934 Hoffman moved to London to work on stage productions and movies, co-writing the hit songs “She Shall Have Music” and “Everything Stops for Tea.” During this time, Hoffman worked with his chief collaborator since the early ’30s, Al Goodhart, and with Maurice Sigler. He returned to the U.S. three years later. Over the years, he also collaborated with Ed Nelson, Sammy Lerner, and Jerry Livingston. Hoffman also collaborated with Mack David on the score of Disney’s Cinderella, which includes such songs as “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes” and “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” (1949).

The popularity of Hoffman’s song, “Mairzy Doats”, co-written with Jerry Livingston and Milton Drake, was such that newspapers and magazines wrote about the craze. Time magazine titled one article “Our Mairzy Dotage.” The New York Times simply wrote the headline, “That Song.” Hoffman’s songs were recorded by singers such as Frank Sinatra (“Close To You”, “I’m Gonna Live Until I Die”), Billy Eckstine (“I Apologize”) Perry Como (“Papa Loves Mambo”, “Hot Diggity”), Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (“Who Walks In When I Walk Out”), Nat “King” Cole, Tony Bennett, the Merry Macs, Sophie Tucker, Eartha Kitt, Patsy Cline, Patti Page (“Allegheny Moon”) and Bette Midler. In October, 2007, Hoffman’s “I’m Gonna Live Til I Die” was the lead single from Queen Latifah’s album, “Trav’lin’ Light”.

Though Hoffman had apparently little connection to Chicago, he wrote the Chicago Bears fight song “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” in 1941 under the pseudonym Jerry Downs. Some of Hoffman’s other best-known songs include “I Apologize,” (1931), “Fit As a Fiddle” (1932), “Black Coffee” (1935), “I’m in a Dancing Mood” (1936), “On the Bumpy Road to Love” (1938), “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba” (1947), “Takes Two to Tango,” (1952), and his final hit, 1959’s “La Plume de Ma Tante.” He died on July 21, 1960, in New York City, NY, of prostate cancer, and was buried in New Jersey. In 1984 he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has over 1,500 songs registered with A.S.C.A.P.

Anna is a village in Shelby County, Ohio. The first white settlement at Anna was made in the 1830s. Anna was platted in 1868, and named for Anna Thirkield. The village was incorporated in 1877. Originally constructed in 1887, this school was closed in 1925 after 38 years of faithful service to the surrounding community. The school house was restored with great care by owners Bill and Bonnie Elsass. Tours are offered by appointment. Meeting room with modern kitchen available on lower level. Contact Bill Elsass at 937-394-7169 for more details.

William Joseph “Billy” Hill (July 14, 1899 – December 24, 1940) was an American songwriter, violinist, and pianist who found fame writing Western songs such as “They Cut Down the Old Pine Tree,” “The Last Round-Up,” “Wagon Wheels,” “Empty Saddles,” and his most popular song “The Glory of Love”, recorded by Benny Goodman in 1936, Count Basie in 1937, Peggy Lee in 1959, Dean Martin in 1966, Tom Rush in 1968, Eddy Arnold in 1969, Wizz Jones in 1970, Otis Redding, The Five Keys, Paul McCartney in 2012 and Bette Midler for the film Beaches. Hill was born on July 14, 1899, in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. He studied the violin at the New England Conservatory of Music under Karl Muck, and played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Hill left home at the age of seventeen and headed west, where he worked as a cowboy in Montana, and as a surveyor and prospector in Death Valley, California. He returned to music and played violin and piano in dance halls until forming his own jazz band in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In 1930, Hill moved to New York City seeking success as a songwriter while working another series of odd jobs. In 1933, he wrote his first hit song, “The Last Roundup”, which was introduced by Joe Morrison at the Paramount Theater and eventually made the 1933 Hit Parade. The song’s success made Billy Hill one of the most successful songwriters on Tin Pan Alley. Hill collaborated with many songwriters, including Peter De Rose, Dedette Hill (his wife), Victor Young, William Raskin, Edward Eliscu, and J. Keirn Brennan, producing standards such as “Have You Ever Been Lonely?”, “In the Chapel in the Moonlight,” “The Call of the Canyon,” “On a Little Street in Singapore,” “The Old Man of the Mountain,” “The Old Spinning Wheel,” “There’s a Cabin in the Pines,” “Put on an Old Pair of Shoes,” and “Lights Out.” Under the name of George “Funky” Brown, he co-wrote “Have You Ever Been Lonely?” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin,” which later became hit songs for the Ink Spots and Elvis Presley. Billy Hill died on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1940, in Boston, MA, at the age of 41.

Maurice (Moritz) von Hesse-Kassel (May 25, 1572 –March, 15, 1632), also called Maurice the Learned, was the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) in the Holy Roman Empire from 1592 to 1627, as well as a musician and composer. Maurice was born on May 25, 1572, in Kassel, Hesse-Kassel, Germany, as the son of William IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and his wife Sabine of Württemberg. On September 23, 1593, Maurice married Agnes of Solms-Laubach (1578 -1602). They had six children. Their oldest son, Otto, Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Kassel, born in 1594, died in 1617. Their second son, William V, born in 1602, became the next Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. After the death of his first wife, on May 22, 1603, Maurice married Countess Juliane of Nassau-Dillenburg (1587 –1643). They had fourteen children.

Although Maurice had been raised in the Lutheran faith, he converted to Calvinism in 1605. On the principle Cuius regio eius religio, Maurice’s subjects were also required to convert to Calvinism. Maurice’s conversion was controversial since the Peace of Augsburg had settled religious matters only betweens Roman Catholics and Lutherans and had not considered Calvinists. Maurice tried to introduce Calvinism to the lands which he had inherited from the extinct Hesse-Marburg branch of his family. Such a change of faith was contrary to the inheritance rules, and resulted in an ongoing conflict with the Hesse-Darmstadt branch. It also brought him into conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor, Matthias.

English strolling players (‘Die Englische Comoedianten’) were frequent visitors to, and performers in, towns and cities in Germany and other European countries, including Kassel, during the 16th and 17th centuries. Landgraf Moritz (to use his German nomenclature) was a great supporter of the performing arts and even built the first permanent theatre in Germany, named the Ottoneum, in 1605. This building still exists today but as a Natural History Museum. He himself was not only a serious musician but an expert composer. A Pavane of his for the lute has several times been recorded by both lutenists and guitarists. The leading musical figures whom he supported included Heinrich Schütz and John Dowland. Maurice’s actions (though not necessarily the Ottoneum) ruined Hesse-Kassel financially. In 1627 he abdicated in favor of his son William V. Five years later he died on March 15, 1632, aged 59, in Eschwege, Hesse-Kassel, Germany.

The following work by Maurice von Hesse-Kassel is contained in my collection: